Étoile

Now something you would expect with a vet’s grandkid is growing up with pets. And I did! I had the privilege of growing up with first an orange tabby cat, then a sweet calico and then finally we got a dog! A border collie mix named Rosie. It was probably a bit easier for my parents having these pets because we never had to pay for vet care. And in the sad moments when the animals were at the end of their lives, my grandpa who they all know would come over and put them to sleep. Sad now that I’m thinking about it, but at least in their final moments they were with someone they knew.

Anyways! Since growing up a vet’s grandkid I’ve always been fond of animals, when I was a younger girl I was head over heels in love with horses.

But now that I’m an adult I find myself owning pets throughout my life. At first in my early twenties, I had a black and white Pitbull named Radi. She lived for fourteen years and then died of natural causes. But about halfway through her life I adopted a stray cat and named her Étoile. Her name comes from her eyes, they are the lightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen in my life on a cat, like the light blue of a distant star.

Here I am trying that viral hack of putting my cat in my backwards hoodie’s hood. She did not take to it! Since she was a stray when I found her, unbeknownst to me she was also pregnant! She appeared on my door step in June and by August she was having her first litter of three kittens, two girls and one boy.

I was with her during delivery, which was incredibly scary because it was the first time I have ever witnessed a cat give birth! Thankfully because of my grandpa and some research before I know what to expect and helped her. I can remember walking into her room (we kept the dog and cat separate at first) and she was in distress, meowing and pacing. I quickly put the dog back in her kennel and attended to my poor girl. She only had three kittens and all of them survived. I found two homes for them, one with the neighbors across the street and the two ‘twins’, the two white kittens went to a friend of a friend.

Recently I was at a friend’s house, she’s mainly a birth doula here in town and she was telling me how her cat recently gave birth. It’s a similar story, but since she has worked with humans giving birth for so long, so knew exactly what to do with the cat! Honestly I was a little jealous, because I wish I know how bloody and scary birth can be. But like my Étoile, everything ended going well with her cat (now they are both fixed!). So a happy ending for both. Oh these little nuggets, how they tug on our heartstrings.